It took West Virginia until its seventh contest outside Morgantown to win away from home this season.
The Mountaineers have now done so in three of their last four road games.
West Virginia overcame a 14-point second-half deficit in its second straight road game, outscoring Central Florida by 21 points over the final 11:14 to claim a much-needed 74-67 victory at Addition Financial Arena.
“We’ve been in those situations,” first-year WVU head coach Ross Hodge said. “Two things I really appreciate about or guys — they let me coach them hard and direct, and in those moments, they allow me to be brutally honest. They may not always like what’s coming out of my mouth, but they trust me enough to know he’s telling me the truth. We had to play better. We challenged them to play better. We believe in our defense and even in the huddles, our guys were like, ‘we can shut people’s water off when we need to.’ They’ve really gotten to the point where they believe that.”
Trailing 62-59 with inside 4 minutes remaining, the Mountaineers (16-9, 7-5) ran off 10 unanswered points over a stretch of 2:12 that made all the difference in the outcome.
It began with a driving layup from guard Honor Huff, who made two free throws 34 seconds later to give WVU the lead for good.
After Huff came up with a steal, backcourt mate Jasper Floyd drained a three-pointer off the wing for a four-point lead with 1:49 remaining.
Huff’s triple with 59 seconds left upped the advantage to seven, and though Themus Fulks countered with a conventional three-point play, the Mountaineers made 5-of-6 foul shots over the final 42 seconds to maintain their separation.
Free-throw shooting was a key component in the outcome as WVU made 16-of-19 attempts, including 15 of 17 after halftime.
“We’ve been in these situations at the end of games and our composure handling presses has been really good,” Hodge said. “Our guys execute it, get the ball out of their hands and get it to the right guys. The right guys end up shooting the free throws late in these games and that’s a big deal.”
Chance Moore’s eight first-half points helped the Mountaineers hang tight with UCF (17-7, 6-6) over the first 20 minutes. During that time, the largest lead for either team was five for the Knights at 29-24, and WVU got a bucket from Moore and another from Floyd just before the buzzer sounded to trail by one at the break.
The Knights scored eight straight points to gain a 39-30 lead, and then got five points from Fulks over 36 seconds to go in front, 51-37.
Consecutive buckets from Brenen Lorient ignited an 8-0 run that also featured Huff’s four-point play.
After Devan Cambridge countered a with a bucket in the paint for UCF, Lorient scored the next five points and Treysen Eaglestaff made two free throws to trim the Knights’ advantage to 54-53.
Floyd’s triple with 6:28 remaining tied the contest at 56 and marked another pivotal play from the Tampa native. Floyd scored 17 points — his most in a Mountaineer uniform since the season opener against Mount St. Mary’s — and made 6-of-8 shots, including three threes, all of which came in the second half. Floyd hadn’t made a three over his previous five games and had four in Big 12 play before Saturday.
Huff scored 18 of his game-high 21 points after halftime and Lorient had nine of his 11 points over that same time, while adding a game-high eight rebounds.
Like Floyd, Lorient is a native of the Sunshine State.
“Honor got going a little bit, Jasper hit some monster shots down the stretch and played tremendous defense,” Hodge said. “Even a couple of shots Fulks hit were incredible. It’s awesome for them. Jasper and B-Lo both probably have 100 people here and it felt like a 65/35 crowd, maybe 60/40. It was amazing.”
Moore finished with 12 points to make it four double-figure scorers for West Virginia.
“He kept us in the game in the first half,” Hodge said.
Of West Virginia’s 11 turnovers, 10 came within the first 25 minutes.
“You’re at that point where you probably couldn’t afford too many turnovers,” Hodge said. “We can get better. I can get better and do a better job of helping us get organized in the middle of the chaos. To our guys’ credit, they execute well when we try and draw stuff up.”
Fulks led UCF with 19 points and dished out a game-best seven assists — three more than WVU totaled.
The Knights played without forward Jamichael Stillwell, who was in uniform and was a gametime decision before tipoff. Stillwell averages 12.3 points and a team-high eight rebounds. WVU won the board battle, 37-31.